2021-04-26
Sol Katz was an early pioneer of FOSS4G and left behind a large body of work in the form of applications, format specifications, and utilities while at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. This early FOSS4G archive provided both source code and applications freely available to the community. Sol was also a frequent contributor to many geospatial list servers, providing much guidance to the geospatial community at large.
Sol unfortunately passed away in 1999 from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, but his legacy lives on in the open source world. Those interested in making a donation to the American Cancer Society, as per Sol’s family’s request, can do so at https://donate.cancer.org .
Nominations for the Sol Katz Award should be sent to SolKatzAward@osgeo.org with a description of the reasons for this nomination. Nominations will be accepted until end-of-day August 20th Anywhere on Earth. A recipient will be decided from the nomination list by the OSGeo selection committee.
The winner of the Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software will be announced virtually during the FOSS4G 2021 event in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The hope is that the award will both acknowledge the work of community members, and pay tribute to one of its founders, for years to come.
It should be noted that past awardees and selection committee members are not eligible.
- 2020: Anita Graser
- 2019: Even Rouault
- 2018: Astrid Emde
- 2017: Andrea Aime
- 2016: Jeff McKenna
- 2015: Maria Brovelli
- 2014: Gary Sherman
- 2013: Arnulf Christl
- 2012: Venkatesh Raghavan
- 2011: Martin Davis
- 2010: Helena Mitasova
- 2009: Daniel Morissette
- 2008: Paul Ramsey
- 2007: Steve Lime
- 2006: Markus Neteler
- 2005: Frank Warmerdam
Selection Committee 2021:
Jeff McKenna (chair)
Frank Warmerdam
Markus Neteler
Steve Lime
Paul Ramsey
Sophia Parafina
Daniel Morissette
Helena Mitasova
Martin Davis
Venkatesh Raghavan
Arnulf Christl
Gary Sherman
Maria Brovelli
Andrea Aime
Astrid Emde
Even Rouault
Anita Graser
